March For Our Lives recap: Frustrated Americans rally for gun reform across US
Rallies spanned D.C. to Florida to Michigan to New York.
Angry and frustrated Americans joined rallies and marches across the U.S. Saturday to advocate for gun reform in the wake of the back-to-back mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York.
The nationwide event was organized by March For Our Lives, a group founded by student survivors of the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 people.
The marches are in response to the May 24 shooting at a Uvalde elementary school that killed 19 students and two teachers, as well as the May 14 massacre at a Buffalo grocery store where 10 people, all of whom were Black, were gunned down in an alleged hate crime.
Latest headlines:
NY AG joins Brooklyn march
New York Attorney General Letitia James joined a march in Brooklyn, tweeting, "We will fight every single day until we get the common-sense gun reforms this nation needs to end gun violence and save lives."
DC mayor: Tell your senators 'make change now-- or get out of our way'
Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser told D.C. protesters she's frustrated because "we have been here before."
"We're not asking for a lot. We're asking to drop off our children at school without having to worry that someone will bring an AR-15 into their classroom. We are asking to go to the grocery store without worrying that someone will be shot dead by a gunman who is filled with hate. We are asking to let our children go to the playground without worrying that a car will drive by, firing a high-capacity magazine," the mayor said. "We're done asking. We're demanding change and we're demanding change now."
She urged Americans "who share our values to let their senators know that they neither need to make change now-- or get out of our way."
Buffalo victim's son: 'Until it happened to us, we were sitting on the sidelines'
Garnell Whitfield Jr., son of 86-year-old Buffalo, New York, mass shooting victim Ruth Whitfield, told the Washington, D.C., crowd, "We were being naïve to think that it couldn’t happen to us. And until it happened to us, we were sitting on the sidelines."
"Guns by themselves are only one aspect of a much more insidious problem in America," he said, calling out the systems he said radicalize mass gunmen, "filling them with weapons and hate-fueled rhetoric."
"Through their inaction they're giving their tacit approval," he said, demanding the passage of an anti-white supremacy hate crime bill.
The Rev. Denise Walden-Glenn, whose brother died of gun violence in Buffalo, addressed the crowd ahead of Whitfield.
She said she's "working tirelessly to figure out long-term, sustainable solutions" to address gun violence and issues that plague Black and Brown communities across the U.S.
"We need a national government that understands equity," she said. "We are tired of them not valuing us."
She added, "If they don’t give us what we ask for, we will vote them out."
Lawmakers join Florida, Michigan rallies
Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., joined a Saturday morning march in Parkland, Florida, home to the 2018 high school mass shooting that killed 17 students and educators.
"In the great struggle to rid our communities of gun violence, the kids will win," he wrote.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., attended a local rally in Michigan, where a student held a sign reading, "I should be writing my college essay not my will."